PRIMARY INGREDIENTS
curated by Iliyana Nedkova
21 May – 31 August 2008
Threshold artspace
Horsecross, Mill Street
Perth, PH1 5HZ, UK
This summer, Horsecross presents Primary Ingredients, a major new exhibition at Threshold artspace which premieres five new commissions by Vuk Cosic, Alec Finlay, Clive Gillman, Katja Loher and Valentin Stefanoff showing alongside works by Perry Bard and Krassimir Terziev in the context of twelve works drawn from the Horsecross collection. Featured are sixteen artists from nine countries who employ text – anything from letters and symbols, poems and stories to books and films – as primary ingredients in their visual grammar. Their works allow us to go beyond the omnipresent debate whether text gives artists the opportunity to be more direct than they usually are with images. A fresh opportunity to test our assumptions that words have cognitive primacy in the brain of the viewer.
Artists from the Horsecross collection of contemporary media art featured include Claude Closky, Lei Cox, Dan Perjovschi, Janek Schaefer, Thomson & Craighead and Mare Tralla.
King Kong ASCII Vuk Cosic (Born 1966 in Belgrade. Lives and works in Ljubljana)
A sample of the artist’s signature retro-futuristic ASCII aesthetics featuring the archetype of the giant ape monster. Cosic runs visual havoc by mastering a character encoding paradigm based on the English alphabet but applied to a popular culture icon.
Commissioned and acquired for the Horsecross collection of contemporary media art. Showing as a 22-channel video installation at Threshold Wave. Leading up to Cosic’s first major solo exhibition in a public institution in Scotland at Threshold artspace in 2009.
Cantus Alec Finlay (Born 1966 in Aberdeen. Lives and works in Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
An endless circle poem inspired by the falling rain and Arvo Pärt’s Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten. Finlay interfuses poetry, music and nature in a video loop reminiscent of John Cage’s experience of listening to the sounds of the woodland while playing records in his cabin at Stony Point.
Commissioned and acquired for the Horsecross collection of contemporary media art. Showing as a 22-channel video installation at Threshold Wave. This is the artist’s first major site-specific commission for Threshold artspace.
22 Letters Clive Gillman (Born 1965 in Liverpool. Lives and works in Dundee)
Taking its cue from the 22 video channels of the Threshold Wave, each screen becomes host to a word from an artist’s poem about the bond of trust that exists between artist and audience.
Commissioned and acquired for the Horsecross collection of contemporary media art. Showing as 22-channel video installation at Threshold Wave. This is the artist’s first site-specific work created for Threshold artspace.
Video Optica Katja Loher (Born 1979 in Zurich. Lives and works in New York)
A trilogy of artist’s films where a giant weather balloon meets motion choreography meets Pablo Neruda. Some of the 74 poems and 316 playful questions about life, death, nature and rebirth, which Neruda wrote in the last year of his life, come alive. If the color black runs out where will the stars live?
Commissioned as part of Players – an ongoing strand in the Horsecross collection of contemporary media art exploring the relationship of contemporary art and gaming culture. Showing at Threshold Stage area. This is the artist’s first exhibition in the UK.
How to Read Between the Lines, or Method for Self-Education Valentin Stefanoff
(Born 1959 in Sofia. Lives and works in Paris)
The mystery and power of reading are captured in a series of single, continuous shots gliding along the gap between lines of newsprint in French, English and Bulgarian. The rhythm of text and image is syncopated by a specially composed soundtrack by Dan Senn.
Commissioned and acquired for the Horsecross collection of contemporary media art. Showing as a 22-channel video installation at Threshold Wave. This is the artist’s first exhibition in Scotland.
Man With A Movie Camera. The Global Remake Perry Bard (Born 1944 in Quebec. Lives and works in
New York)
Dziga Vertov’s 1929 classic film Man With A Movie Camera enters the twenty first century as a database cinema. Built upon the fundamental constituents of a scene index and shot list, Bard’s work prompts a participatory global remake where anyone can upload their footage to become part of a worldwide montage.
Exhibited as part of an ongoing strand in the Threshold artspace programme exploring the relationship of live Internet transmissions and contemporary art. This is the first presentation of Bard’s evolving project in Scotland, initially commissioned by The Bigger Picture, Manchester.
The Return of the Beast 1933-2005 Krassimir Terziev (Born 1969 in Dobrich. Lives and works in Sofia)
Part of the artist’s ongoing inquiry into the basic elements of cinematic grammar, this work superimposes subtitles of the three film versions of King Kong (1933, 1976 and 2005) while questioning our perceptions of time and narrative, the remake and the voiceless protagonist, our collective imagination and memory.
Exhibited as part of an ongoing strand of single-channel works showing at the Threshold Flush areas on eight flat screens. This is the artist’s first exhibition in Scotland.
Primary Ingredients produced by Horsecross for Threshold artspace in partnership with 55degrees and Perthshire Visual Arts Forum.
New commissions supported by the Scottish Arts Council.
Accompanied by new issues of Read More – Horsecross journal of critical writing ISSN 1755-0866 (Online). Specially designed, each issue features a newly commissioned essay about a selected work from the collection.
Launched in September 2005, Threshold artspace is about positioning Perth and Scotland within the contemporary art world at large through commissioning, exhibiting, publishing and collecting.
Horsecross is a new agency delivering cultural activities at Threshold artspace, Perth Concert Hall and Perth Theatre. Threshold artspace and Perth Concert Hall sit on the site of the original Horsecross – Perth’s 17th century horse market. The name is synonymous with bustling regeneration activity in the heart of the city.
For further details please contact Iliyana Nedkova, Horsecross Creative Director (New Media Art) tel: +44 (0)1738 477743 e-mail: inedkova@horsecross.co.uk or iliyana@arcprojects.org
